Two-time Academy Award winner Spike Lee is a prominent New York Knicks supporter and regular courtside attendee at Madison Square Garden, and during the Eastern Conference finals, he named a high price we would pay to see his team win a championship. Lee, ahead of the Knicks’ Game 5 matchup with the Indiana Pacers, said he would trade one of his Oscars in order for the franchise to win the NBA Finals.
The Knicks have not won the league since 1973 and have not appeared in the Finals since 1999. The most recent championship came well before Lee embarked on his storied filmmaking career.
“I would give up an Academy Award, Oscar, for the Knicks to win a championship,” Lee said on “Inside the NBA.” “I got two already.”
Former NBA MVP Charles Barkley responded to Lee’s trade proposal with a jab at the Knicks, saying, “Well, you’re gonna keep ’em.”
Lee won the 2019 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay with his film “BlacKkKlansman” and was a recipient of an Honorary Academy Award in 2016. He also earned a Student Academy Award in 1983 for an independent short film he made for his master’s degree thesis at New York University.
Lee was among the stars in attendance at Game 4 of the Knicks-Pacers series when former Indianapolis Colts punter Pat McAfee slammed New York’s prominent supporters. McAfee called out Lee and others by name and encouraged Indiana fans to send them “back to New York with their ears ringing” in an expletive-filled address to the crowd at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
Grammy Award-winning artist and Indiana native John Mellencamp was also in attendance for Game 4 and did not appreciate McAfee’s comments toward the star-studded Knicks fanbase. He released a statement on social media two days later denouncing McAfee’s “poor sportsmanship” and lack of “Hoosier Hospitality.”
